Yiouvarlakia

Yiouvarlakia

KO’s Yiouvarlakia is a wholesome, hearty soup of herb-loaded meatballs and rice. The soup can be enjoyed as is, or with an avgolemono (egg-lemon) wash, for an added frothy-zing!

Ingredients

For the meatballs you will need…
500 g beef mince
1 brown onion grated
1 egg
½ cup medium grain rice
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon cracked black pepper
20 g mint leaves finely chopped
60 g parsley leaves finely chopped
60 g dill fronds finely chopped

For the soup you will need…
4 litres water
1 tablespoon salt
½ cup extra virgin olive oil EVOO
Meatball mixture

 

Preparation

Preparing the meatballs…

  1. Combine all of the meatball ingredients in a bowl and mix well

Preparing the soup…

  1. Place the water, salt and EVOO in a large pot and heat on high
  2. Form the meatball mixture into balls, about 5cm in diameter, and gently drop the meatballs into the boiling soup
  3. Return the soup to a rolling boil, before reducing to a gentle boil for 20 - 30 minutes
  4. Skim the foam from the top of the soup if you wish
  5. Add 1 ½ cups medium grain rice to the pot and stir through well
  6. Continue to boil gently until the rice is almost cooked through (just before it reaches al dente – see Key Points)
  7. Remove the pot from the heat and allow it to sit for 10 minutes before serving

Serving the yiouvarlakia…

  1. You can enjoy the soup as is, or you can add an avgolemono (egg-lemowash to it, for some extra frothy-zing

For the avgolemono wash…

  1. Separate 3 eggs, juice 3 lemons and reserve 150ml of stock from the pot
  2. Allow the stock to cool a little, so that it’s warm rather than hot
  3. Beat the egg whites till they form soft peaks
  4. Gently fold in the egg yolks, the lemon juice and the warm stock, in turn, to create the avgolemono wash
  5. Slowly add the avgolemono wash to the yiouvarlakia pot and mix through
  6. Serve and enjoy!